Are you the master of your fate?

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Transcript of Are you the master of your fate?

Nene, Nok, Parn, Yoh Are You the Master of Your Fate? Introduction Question ‘When something good happens to you, do you take credit for it or do you think how lucky you were?’

‘Are you the master of your own fate?’

Julian Rotter, claimed that people had a lot of differences when it comes to whether they think they are responsible for something that happens to them

External locus of control= when you think that things are controlled by luck, fate or powerful others

Internal locus of control= when you think things are controlled by your own behaviour and what you do Method Rotter made I-E scale containing 23 pairs of statementsOne reflected internal locus of controlThe other reflected external locus of control

Eg. any of the unhappy things in people’s lives are partly due to bad luck People’s misfortunes result from the mistakes they make

Participants then had to choose which one they believed in6 filler (unrelated) items were added to make sure participants didn’t know the objective of the testRotter then tried to find a correlation between an individual’s score on I-E scale and their interaction in life events Discussion Cultural differencesEx. a US isolated community consisting of Ute Indians (most external), Mexican Americans, and whites (most internal)

Variations in parenting stylesUnpredictable/inconsistent rewards and punishments lead external LOC Results Recent Applications The following results are summed from several studies that used the I-E scale in various forms, all of which found significant correlations between I-E scores and different life events.

GamblingInternal LOC: prefer betting on “sure things”External LOC: gamble more money on risky bets and are likely to engage in “gambler’s fallacy”

HospitalizationInternals were more aware of physical conditions than externals Political ActivismAfrican-American students who participated in civil rights movements in the 1960s were more oriented towards internal LOC.PersuasionInternals were significantly more successful at altering other’s attitudes and were more resistant towards manipulation of attitude by others. SmokingSmokers tended to be significantly more external than non smokers.Smokers who quit smoking after viewing warnings that appear on cigarette packs were more internally oriented.Achievement MotivationAchievement-oriented factors were more likely to be found in students with internal LOC.ConformityInternals conformed less than externals in terms of making judgments that are contrary to the majority. 3 Sources of LOC LOC is a definable characteristic of individuals that operates fairly consistently across various situations.

LOC will influence different people to behave differently when faced with the same situation.

LOC can be measured; I-E Scale is an effective tool for doing so. Internals are more likely to:

Gain information from situations and use it to improve future behaviors

Initiate changes and improve life conditions

Place greater value on inner skill and achievement of goals

Resist manipulation by others Health

Strickland (1978): Internals take more responsibility in their own health, engage in more healthy behaviors, and practice greater care in avoiding accidents

Internals experience less stress and its related illnesses Parenting styles

Parents of internals: affectionate, consistent with discipline, teach children to take responsibility for their actions

Parents of externals: authoritarian and restrictive, give less opportunity for personal control Sims & Baumann (1972):

LOC explains why there is more death from tornados in Alabama than in Illinois

People in Alabama are more external

Internality promotes behaviors that are more likely to save lives e.g. paying attention to the news & alerting others Recent research [1996] related to Rotter’s locus of control (LOC) theory:

Key = a balance between internal & external LOC.People with internal LOC tend to have more well-adjusted and effective lives… But they must also realize and accept that sometimes there will be situations which they cannot control/change. Subsequent Research Questions Julius Rotter explained this phenomenon using the Social learning theory

As a child you learn things through reinforcement. Sometimes the reinforcement will appear as a reaction to your behavior, other times not.

As you grow up you will create an expectancy of whether things are internally or externally controlled based on your experiences.

Rotter believes that these differences in behavior are constant and affect a persons future behavior in almost all situations Rotter wanted to then measure how this trait (internal vs. external) affected behavior

1. Predicted that a test can be develop to measure this trait

2. Predicted that people will display individual differences in their reasoning of the cause of events Theoretical Propositions Rotter's research suggests that having an internal LOC is more beneficial than external LOC. But are there some advantages of having an external LOC?Are Thais more oriented towards an internal or external locus of control? Does our culture reflect Rotter's findings?Is it possible to change your locus of control from external to internal through psychological interventions? What are ways to achieve this?Are there any other possible source of LOC apart from culture, SES, and parenting styles.